“Growing around great musicians, you just can’t help it. I identified with it immediately. It was something that was so natural to me that when I started singing, it was almost like speaking.”

I’m a person who has life and wants to live, and always have.

My mother taught me that when you stand in the truth and someone tells a lie about you, don’t fight it.

I wish to you, joy and happiness. But above all this, I wish you love

Let the children’s laughter remind us how we used to be.

I was aware of people staring at me. No one moved. They seemed almost in trance. I just stared at the clock in the center of the church. When I finished, everyone clapped and started crying.

God gave me a voice to sing with, and when you have that, what other gimmick is there?

I finally faced the fact that it isn’t a crime not having friends. Being alone means you have fewer problems.

I think over the years, being a mother, I’ve matured in so many ways.

I’ve turned down a lot of arena dates because I’ve done the big-arena thing. Now, I want to do something where people can feel me and I can feel them.

I’m either my best friend or my worst enemy.

Never let your heart take precedence over reason, otherwise you will have problems.

Being around people like Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight, Dionne Warwick and Roberta Flack, all these greats, I was taught to listen and observe.

If you say my eyes are beautiful, it’s because they are looking at you.

No one makes me do anything I don’t want to do.

What’s in your soul is in your soul.

She’s my teacher, my adviser, my greatest inspiration.

Science is most significant as one of the greatest spiritual adventures that man has yet known.

Man may reproach women for their dissimulation, but his complacency must be great indeed for him to be so constantly duped.

We ought indeed to shrink from and feel shame at what is base, but nature which is over-cautious to avoid blame may be gentle and kindly, but cannot be great.

Some things I loved have vanished. A great many others have been given to me.

Man’s greatest joy is to slay his enemy, plunder his riches, ride his steeds, see the tears of his loved ones and embrace his women.

The strength of a wall is neither greater nor less than the courage of the men who defend it.

The greatest happiness is to vanquish your enemies, to chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth, to see those dear to them bathed in tears, to clasp to your bosom their wives and daughters.

Black men, you were once great; you shall be great again. Lose not courage or faith, go forward.